£20m investment “is probably an extra motivation” for Chelsea ahead of Women’s FA Cup final, says Bompastor | OneFootball

Alexis Ohanian’s recent investment could provide “extra motivation” for Chelsea when they take on Manchester United in the Adobe Women’s FA Cup final on Sunday, Sonia Bompastor suggested in her pre-match press conference.

Having lifted their sixth successive Barclays Women’s Super League trophy following their late win against Liverpool, The Blues are just one game away from completing an unbeaten domestic treble.

More than 85,000 tickets have been sold for the match, which gets underway at 13:30 BST [14:30 CEST], and while playing at Wembley Stadium will be a new experience for some in her squad, Bompastor is confident that the sizeable contingent of Lionesses can help to maintain composure.

The 44-year-old commented: “I’m lucky to have many English players in my squad who are used to playing in that stadium.”

“I think they have had some conversations together to help players prepare for the game, because being at Wembley can be quite intimidating.”

“We had these conversations together, and it will be a huge opportunity for these players to enjoy that moment.”

There’ll be a special face in the stands on Sunday afternoon, with Alexis Ohanian set to attend alongside his wife, Serena Williams. Ohanian, who co-founded Reddit alongside his university roommates in 2005, recently completed the purchase of an 8-10% stake in the club, believed to be worth around £20m.

Bompastor labelled the investment as “a game-changing endorsement for the women’s game but also for young girls,” adding that in addition to on-pitch success, Chelsea want “to be a model outside the pitch, we want to make sure that when young girls look at our team, they just dream of being one of our players in the future.”

Chelsea have been utterly dominant domestically throughout the 2024/25 campaign but have once again fallen short on the European stage, with an 8-2 aggregate defeat to Barcelona in the semi-finals of the UEFA Women’s Champions League ending Bompastor’s hopes of a quadruple in her first season with the club.

She hopes that Ohanian’s investment could provide the key to success going forwards, noting that “this great investment in the women’s team will help” as The Blues aim “to make sure we are in a position to compete for the Champions League.”

“The club made some decisions in the past weeks and I think they made the right decisions, to allow this team to have investors to come in and bring the team even to another level.”

“This will only go to the women’s team and will help the women’s team invest in terms of infrastructure, facilities, in terms of staff and players.”

But Bompastor remainded insistent that “the [Adobe Women’s FA Cup final] game is something we want to stay focused on, that’s really important.”

“I think [the investment] is probably an extra motivation going into the game on Sunday because we want to go into the game showing pride, but with this exciting news you also want to be responsible for the result you get on Sunday and show our best version.”